October Open Comment Thread

I thought this might be a good time to do an open comment thread. But first, a few updates.

Cory Immediatism has recorded and released an audio version of my very long essay, “A Plague of Gods: Cultural Appropriation and the Resurgent Left Sacred.” This is by far one of my favorite essays that I’ve written this year, as it is one of those few places that I get to openly mix theological and political theories at the same time. Also, despite its immense length and complicated theory, it is also the most read essay at a A Beautiful Resistance after my discussion of Alexander Reid Ross (both close to 20,000 views). Cory’s reading is in two parts. The first is here and the second here. The full text is found here.

My friend Alley Valkyrie is hosting a class called Land: Loss & Reconnection. If you like the kind of writing I do that mixes radical political theory with pagan frameworks, you’ll also like her work (we’ve been friends and partners-in-crime for years now). The course starts 1 November, and the information on it is here.

Alley and I also do a podcast together. We’re currently in the process of moving it to its own Substack, as this platform is really better than any others around and also safer. A fellow leftist podcaster has been hit by multiple Woke cancellations on SoundCloud (where we currently host ours), caused by Twitter mobs mass-reporting episodes for ‘violating community standards.’ (The right never attacks the left anymore. They don’t need to: The Woke do it for them.) I’ll post an update when that transition is complete.

Also, Leighton Woodhouse (who worked with Angela Nagle on a documentary) has posted a very sharp analysis of the problem with ‘Kendian anti-racism’ theory (basically, critical race theory). His conclusion is correct. Go read it.

And lastly, Gordon White had Seán Pádraig O’Donoghue on his podcast. Sean is great, and a long-time friend of mine. We’ll also be publishing a book by him early next year. You can listen to it here (I’m about to do so myself).

Okay, so those are the updates, now to this month’s open discussion threat prompt.

Yesterday, my partner met The Woke. More specifically, he met a group of activists who are dedicated to bringing social justice and “decolonization” to Luxembourg. That group, an actual organization, just started recently and is comprised of upper-middle class “leftist” activists who do disruptive street theatre and protests to draw attention to the colonialism of a tiny nation—smaller than Rhode Island—that never had colonies.

The meeting was about gender. They asked everyone first to declare their pronouns, and then to talk about times they felt they were victims of discrimation and also perpetrators of discrimination. Then, they discussed interesectionality and the Genderbread man and all the other stuff that is current in US and UK discourse.

He told me, ‘you should meet them. They aren’t like the Americans who talk about this.’

Hearing this, I felt a deep panic. It felt like he was describing well-spoken and friendly missonaries he met who were trying to convert him. But the panic was deeper: since I no longer count such people as friends or comrades, I don’t encounter them in everyday life anymore. The led me to pretend that this was all just an American thing, or just online, and that the new religion would never take hold here.

Of course, it’s already in Europe, spread through social media and the universities by American zealots eager to bring the good news to the rest of the world. Two highlights in particular: Kimberly Crenshaw is the honorary president of an organization based on critical race theory in Berlin, and Judith Butler gives many presentations on her theories at European universities and conferences.

It really feels like the early missonary spread of nascent Christianity. Which is what this month’s open discussion thread is about.

Paul Kingsnorth has suggested the early Christians never had any kind of imperialist goals and were instead all about something completely different. I once believed this too, even after I left Christianity. It may be correct, it may be not.

Similarly, though, each of the original theories that comprise the intersecting knot of Woke ideology started out as intentionally liberating, and I do think this was actually the case. For instance, as commenter Adrienne mentioned, the body postivity movement at the beginning was never about shaming or blaming thin people for the oppression of fat people, but actually about all bodies being accepted.

Of course as I and others have noted, all these theories have gone off the rails and now enact something almost the opposite of its intended purpose (again, read Leighton Woodhouse’s piece on the mass firing of white docents that I link to above).

So, are these ideas redeemable? Do you think any of these theories can be re-oriented back to their original sense? Or (as I currently suspect), are the premises themselves what have lead to the terrifying turn?